Research firm YouGov's Quarterly Tablet Tracker for Q1 of 2013 has revealed Apple's market share in the UK is beginning to fall as the popularity of Android tablets increases.

Research firm YouGov's Quarterly Tablet Tracker for Q1 of 2013 has revealed Apple's market share in the UK is beginning to fall as the popularity of Android tablets increases.

While Apple still dominates the UK tablet market, its share of ownership has decreased by 10 percentage points over the past year, dipping to 63 per cent in the first quarter of 2013 compared to 73 per cent in the year ago quarter. YouGov highlights that this loss of market share comes despite the release of the iPad 4 and iPad mini towards the end of 2012.

Apple's decline in tablet market share in the UK is the result of an influx of new Android tablets, including Samsung's Galaxy Tab line-up, Google's Nexus 7 and Amazon's Kindle Fire devices.

In the past year, Samsung has more than doubled its share of the UK tablet market with a current ownership of 10 per cent, up from the 4 per cent share recorded in the first quarter of 2012.

Google's Nexus 7 has already snapped up 8 per cent of the UK tablet market since its launch in July last year, and Amazon's Kindle Fire now has a 5 per cent share of the market.

YouGov says that Apple's iPad mini managed to secure a 4 per cent share of the UK tablet market within three months of its launch, and that the 7in tablet has the highest satisfaction score with consumers overall.

Samsung's Galaxy tablets scored equal to the full-size iPad in terms of quality, according to YouGov's research, and the Google Nexus 7 trumps both Samsung and Apple's tablets with the exception of the iPad mini.

In the UK, there are now more than 8 million adults (18 per cent of the adult population) that own a tablet, YouGov's latest Tablet Tracker report found, which represents a 5 per cent increase since the previous quarter.

"With a growing market, greater competition and falling prices, Apple was bound to lose some share," said YouGov Technology & Telecoms' Consulting Director, John Gilbert. "However, it is not simply a matter of inexpensive products flooding the market. It seems that Apple no longer has a monopoly on the "premium" share as other brands emerge with near-equal satisfaction scores."

"Given the market's current expectations and considerations in purchasing tablets, we anticipate Apple to lose additional share throughout the coming year to Samsung, Google and Amazon," he concluded.

Meanwhile, Chitika Insights reports that the iPad saw its first month-over-month gain in web traffic in the US and Canada since December, with 81.9 per cent of web traffic recorded by the online advertising company contributed by iPad users. This represents a 1.4 per cent points increase since February, so it's not all bad news for Apple's tablet family.